Reviews for Smittybilt SB97495 XRC-9.5 Gen2 Winch

Quick arrival! Easy wiring and install! Great look! Exactly what I needed!

I got an opportunity to use my winch. It worked great, very simple to use. I had to winch out a very stuck J.K. in the snow. We tried to pull the Jeep out first with another Jeep, however we were unable to free the J.K. I'm very happy with my purchase.

FINALLY had a chance to use my new Smitty winch. I live in Northern Michigan and use my lifted 2000 Cherokee to explore the hundreds of miles of forest trails just across the road from me. I am about 5 miles back in and find a wallowed in one ton commercial van with a very distressed young female driver. The thing had street tires with no lug pattern and in the soft sand road it just buried. Asked how she got there and she said she was following the GPS to make a delivery on the eastern side of the state. Her GPS actually took her off the right paved road to be on and took her into the boonies. (a word of caution to all about blind faith in a GPS) Anyway I tried just pulling her out and no go. I just spun in also. Laid out about 80 feet of winch line and after the Cherokee wallowed in again from skidding it popped the van free from its holes. She tried driving off the soft and it just spun in again. 3 times I had to run line and pull her back until she finally hit solid ground. There was no cell coverage where she was so she could have been there a while without me stumbling across her. The winch pulled strong and never gave a bit of hesitation. This is the second 9.5 Smitty I have had on a Jeep. I also had one on my LJ when I sold it this summer. I have no problem trusting it to get me out of any trouble I may get myself into.

Haven't used it yet, but quality seems good, and shipment was very fast. I almost gave it four stars because of what I think are inadequate instructions. I wound up installing it, taking it off and re-installing it because two of the wires (the two black wires) had to be connected on the under side of the unit, with very little room to work and get the bolt started in the threaded port. I wound up taking everything apart (mounting plate off of bumper; winch off of mounting plate) to attach the wires.

Great entry level winch. Don’t expect to do much rock crawling or mudding. Most use would be to clear debris, pull cars out of the canal by the house when it rains and they park in the wrong spots and thing this will serve quite nicely. Install was a breeze, highly recommend you mount onto bumper before mounting bumper itself. Got an extra long positive wire after reading reviews but didn’t need it. Installed on a JL Sahara

The winch and accessories are awesome. The mounting hardware is a different story. They sent standard thread 1/2 " bolts but mine needed M12-1.75 thread. Be careful not to force the hardware.

Weak connection point for remote. Although being very careful while removing the remote, the plastic socket broke right at the point where the screw secures it to the housing. It may be worthwhile to apply a bit of lubricant to the plug prior to using. I'm going to attempt a repair using epoxy. Otherwise, the installation was easy and the directions clear. The result is a clean installation with protected cables and easy access to controls.

So far so good, it was an easy instal on my Smittybilt bumper.

Easy enough installation and wiring. I would recommend wiring the bottom terminal to the winch before mounting it to the bumper, as it is difficult but possible to attach afterwards. Put tension on the cable by pulling myself to a tree and everything seems to work great.

I have yet to winch anything yet, but looks good and was easy to install. Note: Mount wench to wench plate prior to mounting on bumper.